The idea for these IAmElemental action figures came out of ongoing conversations between co-founders Julie Kerwin and Dawn Nadeau.

“We were unhappy with the hyper-sexualized action figures we found in the market, and we began to ask ourselves why male superheroes, like Spiderman, appeal to both a four-year-old boy and a forty-year-old man, but the same could not be said about female superheroes,” Nadeau told the MindHut. “Julie had just read Angela Duckworth’s pioneering study about Grit, heard brain expert Jo Ann Deak pronounce that ‘boys and girls are as different from the neck up as they are from the neck down,’ and was knee-deep in ‘Girl Power’ read-alouds with her six-year-old son when, as improbable as it may sound, the answer seemed to burst forth fully-formed (and fully-armed) like Athena from her father Zeus’ forehead. ‘It’s not superheroes, it’s superpowers.’ Five little words, that’s all it took. Within 24 hours we had a fully formed company mission, a domain name, and the start of a very big idea.”